Bats are often mistaken for dangerous, spiteful and even vicious animals – which is undoubtedly false! Bats are hurt-less, little and very vulnerable animals that need all the help they can get from us humans. Don’t forget:
- Bats get rid of insects, they consume up to 200 per hour.
- Guano (bat’s droppings) is the best plant fertiliser known to man.
- Micro bat’s echolocation censoring is currently being studied to see if we can duplicate it to help those who are blind.
With these in mind, it’s a misfortune that bat numbers are lowering. Due to a loss of habitat, bats are at this moment in time, forced to leave their zones of comfort to seek new locations to live in, and with less of them finding the right roost, they are losing time when they need to rest, which is having an effect effect with them surviving the winters.
Why Should you Own a Bat Box
Bats have to look for new places to roost thanks to a loss of habitat when greenbelts are destroyed to make way for new residential neighbourhoods. Bats must have good standard homes to rest, roost and have their babies if they are to stand any chance of surviving in the big wide world. If your garden has the right conditions to support the habitat for a bat, we recommend that you purchase or create a bat box for them.
If you want to have bat boxes for your bat community, there are a few important points to be taken into consideration.
These are recommendations and suggestions that have worked for other people, just to be sure you provide your bat tenants with a wonderful and hopefully permanent home.
Where Do Bats Sleep?
Bats will sleep anywhere that is secure and stable, which can offer warmth, comfort, food, water and shelter. Whether you’re thinking of putting your bat box in a tree, or on a building, the box needs to be weather and draught proof, otherwise it will be unsafe for your furry tenants. Ideally you should hang your bat box 5 meters above the ground on a building or tree – always check there are no nearby limbs to help predators reach the bat box.
Check for Signs of Residency
Residency of bats is never guaranteed. You won’t see any signs of bat residency for a while, so be patient. However, if you do not notice any bat residency within three years of owning your bat house, it is an idea to find another part of your outside area to relocate it to.
Place sticky tape under the entrance hole (be careful not to cover it) to catch any droppings to find out whether there are any bats taking up residence. Don’t forget that it’s illegal to handle or disturb a bat, so make sure that you’re careful about the way you approach your bat box – as if you’re found to have handled a bat without a licence or harmed a bat, you will receive a fine of up to £5,000 for every bat involved.
What Size Should The Entrance Hole Be?
People often threat about the entrance hole size on the bat box and feel it should be larger. What they are unaware of is the fact that bats like tight and small spaces, after all, the single chamber bat box is able to house up to 50 bats. Bats frequently cram up together in enclosed spaces to ensure they stay secure and warm. Bats would much rather enter a tighter and smaller hole and roost there instead of entering a hole which allows them more leg room. Bats are small and can easily get through a 15mm wide slit.
What Should The Temperature Of A Bat Box Be?
Temperatures are always an important factor when it concerns your bat bat box, where your bat box is placed can have an effect on its temperature. The temperature of the bat house should stay between 80° F and 100° F for as long as you can manage to aid maternity colonies during the summer.
Painting your bat box
Some claim that it can help prolong an appropriate temperature, whereas others would rather buy a bat home that is created to heat up quicker and stay warm for longer However, it is hard for anybody who has made or intends to make a bat house to design it in such a particular and technical way – particularly if it’s the first bat box that they have built. So that’s whyseveral people decide to paint the outside of their bat house.
Apparently, painting the outside of your bat home ensures that the inside is an ideal temperature at the appropriate time – Below are the right colours for people that consider painting their bat house.
- Paint the outside of your bat box black if the average temperature is below 85° F
- Paint your bat box brown if temperatures are between 85° F and 95° F
- If temperatures are between 95° F and 100° F, paint your bat home using medium colours.
- Paint your bat box white, or other light coloured shades if temperatures are above 100° F
Bat box painting is a very shady subject; some people recommend it whereas other people feel it can be dangerous as it can poison or in other ways harm bats. Whether you do or do not choose to paint the outside of your bat box, never paint or mess with the inside, because the inside should always remain of natural substances and materials, as well as this, do not treat your bat house with chemicals because it could potentially poison them.
When Selecting Your Bat Box, You Should Consider…
When selecting bat boxes you must make sure that all the joints are tight, and that the landing plate and interior are rough so bats can climb in and have something to cling to for security. The entrance hole must not be too big. Because bats like roost temperatures to slowly rise and fall, thicker boxes are the better option when it concerns providing a bat lodger with a comfortable home for roosting. Even though wood boxes are good bat homes, studies show bats actively searching for woodcrete boxes, as although they are less popular and are used less frequently than wooden bat boxes, they are undoubtedly more stable and are both weather and draught proof and are frequently adopted as permanent roosts by bats.